Rebuild
by Aksannyi
Summary: Ziva centered story set directly after the events of Past, Present, Future. This will be a two-part piece, with Part II posted tomorrow. Ziva is trying to reconcile herself with her past, a journey she feels must be taken alone. This piece is about her internal struggle, the war with herself. This has very strong Tiva undertones.
1. Part I: Deconstruction

**This is based off a tumblr word prompt, "I think I made him cry." I didn't have a set plan for this one and let it write itself. Finally, it became a post-PPF piece, something I hadn't yet had the ability to tackle. **

**This is written in Ziva's POV. I don't generally use first person narrative, but it's very introspective and I believe this time it may have worked. I genuinely hope I captured the essence of Ziva David in this. **

**This will be a two-part piece. I am finishing up Part 2 tonight, and I will post it tomorrow. **

**Rebuild**

Part I: Deconstruction

The drive back from the airport was quiet, and the tears left unshed streamed down my face. I hadn't wanted to cry, not the way I had as I watched him walking away. I hadn't wanted him to see how truly difficult it had been to let him walk away from me.

I didn't want him to think that he had to stay, to protect me. Tony is someone who tries to fix everything. He would have tried to heal what he felt was broken.

What he does not understand is that sometimes, things aren't meant to be repaired. Sometimes, the cracks in the pavement are so great, the entire road must be destroyed in order to build it anew. It will, essentially, be the same, but it will be stronger, and sturdier, and more capable of handling the heavy traffic that will seek to wear it down over time.

This is what he did not understand. I cannot be with him right now. He would not hurt me; I know this now. I have known for a while. All the same, I must allow myself this break. Tears I hadn't known I still possessed continued to fall. I did not want to be this broken woman. Another sob wracked my body as I slowly pulled my rented car in front of the house I'd chosen to make my domicile, at least for the time being.

I would likely not be staying long.

I feel as though I need to find meaning in my life again. Tony would say that helping people, helping women like me, that could be my meaning. And superficially, maybe that is true – if I can help people without in turn having to cause more pain. I cannot take another life, even in defense of others. I will not.

Tony helped me to make a new list, but that will not be the list I live my life by. I enter the house and put my keys down, crossing the room to pull out another piece of paper, a blank sheet.

I appreciate Tony's sentiment, really. But if I wish to create the proverbial blank slate for myself, then I must start with a blank sheet of paper. And allowing Tony to help me make a new list, well, that was more for his benefit than my own. I had to let him feel that he was helping me. Because that is pure Tony. I knew he would not leave this evening if he did not think he could leave me with _something_.

And I do hope that he understood that by giving him my necklace, I was letting go of my past. He is a part of my past now. I want him to carry my past self with him. He loved me, I believe that. He loved who I was with him. Four months is a long time. He does not love the person I have become in this time. But in more time, will he love me? The me of the future, the woman I had always hoped to be? I cannot know that now. The future has not yet been written.

I think I made him cry. But I cannot be sure, under that smile, that bravado he displays so well. Even I had to smile as he walked away, even with tears welling in my eyes. But I do think, once he slowed down, once he thought of me, perhaps once he found my necklace – I am sure of it. He has cried for me. I do not want him to hurt for me, but I understand. I have been important in his life. As he has been to mine.

It was difficult to watch him walk away. With a smile, even, as I stood there, small sobs wracking my body in protest. I love him, and he is the same Tony I have always known. I can love him for who he is. And a part of me wanted him to stay. But I could not allow him to. I would not be able to find the piece of myself I'd been missing all these years if I allowed him to stay. It is something I must do myself.

But yes, I will miss him dearly. I only hope that he will someday forgive me for taking this step alone.

I walk to the bedroom, noting the tangled mess of sheets, sheets that undoubtedly still had the scent of us upon them. I crossed to the bed, gathering the sheets in my arms, inhaling their scent before walking, swiftly, to dump them in the washing machine.

I must not allow myself to become nostalgic for something that could not be. The house was dim with just the light from the entry illuminating the space, and as I returned to the living area, I let the darkness wash around my skin, comforting me. Sometimes, in order to appreciate the light, we must necessarily spend our time in the dark. It would be a long road, one I could not drag anyone down, none but myself.

The blank sheet of paper sat still on the desk, beckoning me. There were but a few items I must write down, for myself. I opened the drawer, searching for a pen, and there it sat.

A small piece of paper, folded in half once, with just the word "Ziva" scrawled across it, in a handwriting I knew as well as my own.

"_I knew you were going to write a different list. You're more transparent than you think. I understand. You have to do this for yourself. Just do me a favor, okay? Add 'I will not forget my family' to it, will ya? We're here for you. I hope you find what you're searching for someday. Anyway, I don't even know what I wanted to say here. Maybe just that when I told you 'anything you need' after your father was killed – that still stands, okay? If you need anything, you call me."_

I should have known Tony would leave something behind for me, even after I told him I could not have any keepsakes. It is why I returned his picture to him, the one from when he was younger. I ran my finger along the side of the paper, noting a small indentation – a teardrop? Right next to his name, written like an afterthought with a crudely drawn heart. So he had cried for me. It shouldn't, but it makes my heart ache.

But Tony will not disappear, and he will be there if I decide to return. Tony knows that I am the one prone to disappear. I am the one that will be impossible to find.

I have been impossible to find for perhaps the last 25 years, or maybe longer. I have been lost for so long, I do not even know where to begin looking anymore.

I set the note down on the table, next to my blank sheet of paper. My present and my past, right next to each other on a plain desk in the house where I was born. Where is my future? It is not here, this much I know.

It is not here.

The realization hits me suddenly, that I do not want to say here any longer. The ghosts of my past haunt this house, and bringing Tony here just added another ghost to an already overflowing abode. My childhood loomed heavily over me like a storm cloud, threatening chaos and destruction. I would not find peace here.

There was nothing in this house that I cared to take with me. If I returned someday by chance, I would retrieve what belongings remained. Glancing around briefly, my eyes resting on the desk where Tony's note sat, I shut off the lights, picking up the keys and exiting.

I unlocked the car and sat down, suddenly becoming overwhelmed with the feeling of having forgotten something. Possessions were never of importance to me, with the exception of my necklace. Why would I become sentimental now? I reached to start the car, but I couldn't shake the feeling. There was something in that house I was meant to carry with me. If I wanted to discover myself anew, I would have to start listening to my instincts.

I walked back to the house, unlocking the door and flipping the light switch on. My eyes scanned the room slowly, searching for whatever I was missing. I'd left the door open behind me, the evening breeze blowing through the house and rustling the papers on the desk. The letter from Tony fell to the floor, and I bent down to pick it up. It had landed folded, my name to the ground, and on the back was more writing, smaller than on the front side of the note. I flipped it over, noting that there was no arrow to indicate that I should turn the page. Maybe Tony hadn't wanted me to see this side.

"_If you're reading this, well … there's something I wanted to give you, but I couldn't find a way. You don't seem to want me to be a part of your life anymore. But I made up my mind that it was yours, a long time ago. So look in the bottom drawer, underneath some index cards - just keep it."_

I furrowed my brow, confused. When had he written that? It had to have been after we talked in the orchard. I bent to open the bottom drawer, shuffling the index cards out of the way and there it was – his family ring. I couldn't help the gasp that came from my throat, as I stood, breathlessly looking down. It is a family ring. A ring to be passed down to the next generation.

I do not deserve this.

Gingerly, I picked it up, holding it between my fingers. Remembering the Christmas when he showed me the ring. It was something that made him happy. So now Tony had my necklace, and I his ring. I knew that this was what I was meant to carry with me; what was pulling me back into this house. I did not want a keepsake, and yet I could not bring myself to leave it behind. I didn't spare a look around the house again as I slid the ring into my pocket, finally walking out the door.

I didn't know where I was going. And it did not really matter, as long as it was not here. I had plenty of money, my father had seen to that, even for all of his faults. I would be okay, wherever I ended up.

And surely, I would find peace with myself somewhere on this earth.


	2. Part II: Reconstruction

**Thank you for the reviews. This is the second and final part of this story. **

Part II: Reconstruction

If I were to find purpose in this life, to find myself amongst the millions of people that inhabit this planet, I felt that I had to be alone in order to do it. Others invading my thoughts, influencing my dreams, it is not what I needed. It is not how I needed to do things.

I needed to atone. I did not need the guilt or the burden of all against whom I had sinned. It is why I have not contacted anyone. Once I am healed, then I may heal these relationships.

Only I did not expect this gift, this unforeseen turn of events announcing itself on two pink lines.

I had wanted to separate myself from that life, from those people. From anyone I may have hurt. I did not want to carry Tony with me. Although I took the ring he had given me, I kept it safe, locked in a small corner of my new apartment where it could remain unseen until I was ready once again to consider my life as part of his, and vice versa.

He had wanted to leave something of himself behind, and he had, in the most unexpectedly beautiful of ways. I had not even considered that he might leave behind a new life. A new life from which I was expected to grow and change, in ways I once didn't even consider possible.

Tony had tried in every way he could to get me to keep a part of him in my life. Any part of him. It is why he left me his family ring. It was why he tried to refuse when I returned his picture to him. It is why he wanted me to promise him some sort of future.

And yet, in the way all plans oft go awry, I could not leave him behind, not entirely.

It is not time yet for me to return though. I have not yet come to terms with myself. How can I provide a life for this child when I could not provide a suitable life for myself? How am I to find my own purpose now? With this child, I am no longer alone.

I cradle my stomach, still flat and toned. I look down at my hand, already so protective.

Was I always meant somehow to be a mother? This being within me, it was already so loved. I am already promising it protection and nurturing, and I do not even know what to call it. Him. Or her.

I set upon a journey two months ago, a pilgrimage to forgive myself. To right all of my wrongs. I could not give back the lives I have taken. I could not erase what I have done. It is, as much as it pains me to admit, a part of me. I have finally come to accept that my past is in the past. I can no sooner go back and change it than I can see the future that's to come. It is not for me to know these things. I can only strive to make the future better. To _be _better.

If I could have known the future would hold the promise of new life, precious little love child, would I have done things differently? Would I have turned Tony away at my door, sent him home without a word, an explanation?

Or if I had stayed in DC, would I not still keep Tony at arm's length, never having had this one night? Would I not still be an agent, still pursuing the bad guys while never stopping to consider that I might belong among them? A killer myself?

A killer who now will bring forth new life?

Perhaps with this new life I shall now have my redemption.

I left DC after having resigned last summer with the intention to do some traveling, but with no intention of not returning. Not until I ran into an old friend, and old friend turned bitter by loss. An old friend whose misery I had caused. And it was then that I knew, I must leave NCIS. I must change my life. It was this realization that had led to my disappearance, and Tony's subsequent trek to locate me.

It was that realization – that I must change to become whole again – that ultimately led to my impending motherhood.

I do not believe in fate or destiny. I do not believe that things are meant to be any certain way. I do not believe the future is written. We must make our futures, and live with the consequences of all choices, good or bad. I made the choice to leave, to change. To remove "killer" from my list of descriptors. To find within myself the person I longed to be.

And now within myself, there _is_ a person to be. A child, born of a killer? How could this be? I had dreamed, for so long, of a child I might one day have, and yet when I began to walk this path many months ago, I could not fathom that I could be worthy of motherhood.

When I found Tony's ring in my desk drawer all those weeks ago, I could not understand why he would give it to me. I am not his family. It was not an engagement, or promise ring. It did not make sense that he would give me something that had been in his family for generations. Something that should remain in his family.

And now with this child, it would remain in his family. Had Tony somehow known? I shake my head at the thought. Of course he had not. It is coincidence, nothing more. Some may not believe in them, but this could not be anything but.

I am not sure what terrifies me more: this new life, that which will be entirely dependent upon my care and support, or the prospect of reaching out to Tony and telling him of this new development in my – in _our_ lives. We would now be forever intertwined. How I had tried to push him away, out of my life. How I had done all I could to save him from what could only be more pain at my hands. What cruel trick of the cosmos had conspired to tie us so neatly together; to weave tightly the fabric of our very being?

It is late here. I do not know why I stayed up so late to take this test. But it is only early evening there. Tony would possibly be leaving work, or even home already. I could call him. I _should _call him.

But what do you say to someone who, after four months of searching, was turned away and sent home after mere days? Perhaps this, too, is part of my atonement for all of the sins I have committed, the small sins against him. He had said he would not contact me. It is I who must first contact him.

It is I who must apologize.

My phone number is changed, and he will not recognize it when I call, but I do believe he will notice the country code. I do not keep my phone with me very often, because no one has been given this number. I have chosen to live a private, quiet life.

It's funny how our intentions change.

I dial the familiar number. I memorized it several years ago, when Tony and I became partners. You do not know when you will need to contact someone without the benefit of your contact list.

The phone rings, the ringing sound of an American call foreign after even this short time. And yet, concentrating on the sound keeps my nerves from running away with me. It would not do for me to hang up now.

He answers, an uncertain sounding, "Hello?" passing to my ears. His voice had not changed.

I wonder if he, too, had not changed. "Tony," I breathe, certain that if he wasn't already sure it had been me when he saw the caller ID, he is now.

"Ziva," he responds, relief flooding from his voice. "Where are you? Are you okay?"

"I am fine, Tony," I answer, and it almost feels like old times. The line is silent for a moment, and I wonder how to proceed.

"So …" he trails off. It seems we are both in this predicament. I should not have expected anything less than awkwardness after not speaking in so long.

"I …" I start. I purse my lips together, furrowing my brow in concentration. This was harder than I expected it to be.

"Have you … have you found what you were looking for?" He asks, uncertainly. I can sense his hesitation, like he is not sure I had been searching for anything at all.

"I am not sure," I respond, truthfully.

"Then why are you …" he starts to ask, but stops.

This is going badly. I am half tempted to hang up the phone and give up. I am not ready to speak with him, to apologize for what happened. To apologize for who I was; who I had to be. To apologize for the future he must now endure with me, with this child. To apologize for everything I am and ever will be. I feel my head beginning to spin, the demons of my past spiraling out of control. Accusing me of everything I have ever done wrong, when all I want to do is admit my crimes and pay my penance. Why must they continue to torture me so? Why-

"You there?" he asks, and I'm brought back to earth.

"Tony, I am pregnant," I blurt, without thought. Maybe that was the best way, after all. To spit it out and just lay it on the table.

"You … uh, _what?" _he asks, and I can practically hear his jaw drop from halfway around the globe.

I take a deep breath, and start, "I am pregnant. I tried so hard to leave everything behind, to make a clean break, to erase what had passed. But you kept pushing, insisting that I take something, _anything _of you. It is why you left your family ring, yes?" I do not give him time to respond, continuing, "And unbeknownst to the both of us, you did leave something of you behind, after that … that night." I find that tears are now running down my face, my words beginning to waver with the threat of tears. No, not _again, _I must not cry. I must not-

"Oh my god," he responds, and he is stunned, I know that tone of voice.

"You did not do anything wrong, please do not blame yourself, Tony. It is I who must take the blame. If I am to atone for my sins, for all the lives I have destroyed then this is to be my burden, to bring forth life."

"Burden?"

"In a manner of speaking, yes," I pause, realizing he may have taken it the wrong way. "I believe this … this child will redeem me. Through this life, this positive act of creation, I can make up for some of what has been lost. Through its innocence, I can restore my own."

"Well," he starts, and I can hear the grin spreading on his face, too, "does this mean that you will come home?" Oh no. Oh _no. _I am not ready to think about going back, no, not yet. The smile on my face vanishes, and I begin to panic. No. I cannot go back, not yet.

"I … cannot," I choke out, "not yet."

He pauses, and I'm not sure how to take it. Tony wanted nothing more than for me to leave with him two months ago, and I would bet that has not changed.

"Okay," he relents. And that's all there is, no discussion, no pleading. Maybe he had changed, after all.

"You ..." I pause, drawing in a deep breath. "You may come here though. I … there are things I must say. In person. And … I … do not know if you are willing to be a father. Yet. Or at all. And it is okay if you do not know yet, either. You don't need to decide right away. And if you do, well … I will welcome you."

"You will?" he asks, and I hear how hopeful he is.

"I will."

"For good?" I am taken aback by this question. Tony would not give up everything, his career, his home, for me? For me and for the baby?

"You wouldn't-" I start, but he interrupts me.

"I _would," _he corrects. "If you wanted me to, I'd give it all up. I've missed you, Ziva. You're more important to me than this job, this new Probie I have to break in. I'd rather have you."

"Tony," I respond, stunned. He'd really give up everything he has worked for, for me?

"I risked everything for you. Not once, but twice. I'm not even sure why I still have a job, actually. Did you honestly think I wouldn't come to you if you asked?"

"It isn't that," I argue, "it is that I would not _want_ you to give up everything for me." Why does he not understand that I do not want him to give things up, for me? I cannot ask him to do these things.

"Even if that's what I've been wanting to do since the moment I saw you again in Israel?" I am left speechless. He _had? _Why had he not said these things two months ago?

"Why?"

"Why what? Didn't I say it? You wouldn't have listened. Don't even try to pretend that you would have. You would have pushed me away and convinced yourself that it was all in my head, some pipe dream." He was right, but I would not admit that out loud. I did not respond.

"I also didn't tell you that I love you, for the same reason."

"You … what?"

"You heard me, and I told myself I wouldn't miss the chance to tell you if I ever spoke to you again. It was my biggest regret, leaving you there, that I didn't say it. So now you know."

"I…"

"You don't have to say anything, Ziva. I just needed you to know."

"Okay," I respond, then pause to collect my thoughts. "I would like for you to come … to visit. We can discuss what will happen then. Once we have had the chance to see each other again. Please do not do anything rash." Like quitting, I think but do not add. He knows what I mean.

"I'm already on the ticket website," he answers, obviously distracted by plane fares.

"Please, Tony," I beg, "give it a few days, okay? Do not jump on the next flight to Israel the minute we hang up the phone."

"You still need time to process this?" he asks. How he still knows how to read me, over the phone, no less, baffles me.

"Yes. Please."

"When?"

It is Tuesday, and I need only a few days to think. Any longer and I may lose my resolve, to see him, to apologize, to work this out, not for us, necessarily, but for the baby. _Baby. _"Friday. Come on Friday."

"Friday," he mumbles under his breath, and I know he is purchasing the ticket. "It's done." I cannot help but smile. I am apprehensive, but I have missed him. "I will see you in a few days," he adds.

"Good." I am smiling. My heart is still racing, the thought of a cross-continental parenthood sending anxiety coursing through me. "And Tony?"

"Yes?" he asks expectantly.

"I … I …" I draw in a breath. I cannot say it. "I …" I am sorry. It is three simple words. Three simple … terrifying … words laced with acceptance and finality. I cannot say it.

"I know, Ziva. You don't have to say it now." I let out a sigh of relief. It occurs to me that he may think I have intended to say something different, but I let it go. I do not know why I even tried, not yet, anyway. I do not have to say everything in my heart with this conversation. We will see each other again. Friday. It's so soon, but not.

We say our good byes, and for me, good night, and I hang up the phone feeling slightly better than when I dialed, but still nervous and expectant. When I drove Tony to the airport and watched him board a plane back to America, I did not imagine I would be contacting him this soon, if at all. I had wanted to break away. To find myself. To make peace with my past. To get back to what I wanted out of life.

But it is impossible for me to be that little girl again, the one with the hopeful list. I cannot erase what has been done. I can only move forward. I am not sure that I have found who I want to be yet. Maybe that is something that we find as we live; something that is ever-evolving.

But I have found within this child, this bundle growing within me, something I thought I would need to look much harder to find: forgiveness. This child has allowed me to finally forgive myself.

And from that, now, I believe I can begin to live.

* * *

**This is the end of this story. I hope that this story did Ziva David justice, and please tell me how I did, if you have a moment. **


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